True Freedom

Hosea 11

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This passage creates a whole new understanding of God’s unconditional love for us. We are God’s children. God has loved us since the beginning. Like a parent teaches a child to walk, God has been there, providing for us and showing us the ropes.

God is not only our source of being, but He is also with us along the way. God feeds us, draws us in close, and loves us.

This passage also reminds us that we have a tendency to turn away from God. For as long as God has been pampering us, we have defied God and we’ve gone our own way.

The false gods that Hosea speaks about in this passage are like our insatiable appetite today to consume, work, and find our own way, independent from community.

God is not only the source of our being, but He is like an ever-flowing fountain in the middle of the desert. Cool, refreshing water is within reach.

Yet, sometimes we are like thirsty travelers who walk right on by, dead-set on finding our own source of cool water – our own source of replenishment.

It’s a ridiculous situation to imagine! Think about it!

It’s like we’re walking around aimlessly in a desert, God provides a cool and refreshing drink, and yet we walk right on by!

We walk right on by! We continue on our way! The source of All offers us an intimate and replenishing relationship, yet we go our own way.

[Lord, have mercy!]

God’s speech in Hosea, however, does not take this lightly

God’s speech conveys a deep and tragic longing for his unconditional love to be returned by Israel.

In this passage, God tells us about his love for us through a beautiful metaphor of a parent’s love for her child.

From birth, the mother soothes the baby to sleep.

As a toddler, the father provides a healing kiss and Band-Aid as the child experiments with walking.

From adolescence, the mother prepares a sack lunch before the child’s first day of school.

As a teenager, the child stops communicating with her parent. She comes home late, growing more and more distant.

From young adulthood, the parent continues to support and reach out, even though the child never comes home and only talks to him when she needs something.

In young arrogance, the child hurts the parent through rebellion as she grows into adulthood, yearning to live independently.

In seasoned heartbreak, the parent grows angry as he yearns for relationship with the child, yearns for the child to love him in return.

[Pause]

Maybe this passage reminds you of your story.

Maybe it reminds you of when you were coming-of-age,

When you wanted freedom from the shelter of your childhood that never went away.

Maybe it reminds you of being a parent to a child who rejected all of the years of support and nurture,

When you put everything you had into your child so that she could have a sure footing in a rough and chaotic world.

Maybe it reminds you of your relationship with God.

When you faintly remember feeling held [right here] by the warm hand of a loving God;

but now, on this Sunday, the worldly tasks of the upcoming week make that feeling a distant memory instead of an ever-flowing fountain within reach.

[Pause]

How do we handle the heartbreak?

How does God handle the heartbreak from his wayward children?

God could just destroy everything in anger. God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. God has the ability to be wrathful.

God even considers it here in this passage!

“A sword shall descend upon their towns

And consume their limbs

And devour them because of their schemes.”

Verses like this are harsh and difficult to hear, but it helps us begin to understand the deep hurt that God might feel when his children turn away from him

God’s potential for wrath, however, does not get the final word.

God has a change of heart; God’s tenderness is stirred.

He says,

“How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I surrender you, O Israel?”

God cannot destroy God’s children.

God yearns for relationship.

God yearns for the type of love that isn’t forced upon us. God yearns for us to freely love in return.

The consequence of our freedom to love God is that we don’t always love God.

God created us to be free. We are free to love God. And wouldn’t you know it, we are also free to reject God.

[Repeat]

I’ve often think of freedom as the rejection of everything.

Freedom is not being tethered by anything but the open road.

Possessions, careers, relationships, and community are for chumps.

To be truly free is to live by oneself in a shack in Alaska. Right? Independence!

To be free is to be self-sufficient; it’s not being dependent on society to tell me how to live.

To be free is to make my own path in life.

To be free is to act upon every dumb little decision that pops into my head.

I remember one day when I was in 9th grade and we only had a half day of school. My parents let two of my friends come over after we got out early so that we could hang out.

Now, this was a big deal because it was the first time that my parents had let me have friends over when they weren’t home.

Talk about freedom!

Once we got off the bus, we quickly popped some Hot Pockets in the microwave and settled down in front of the computer to watch YouTube videos of Parkour.

If you don’t know what Parkour is, it’s an “art form” where gymnasts run around cities and jump off buildings and do flips off walls.

We got so hyped watching those videos!

So hyped that we had the bright idea to practice Parkour on our own.

Our first feat as budding Parkour athletes was to jump off the second-story roof of my house into my mom’s bushes.

We, of course, videotaped it and posted it to YouTube.

The only problem with our flawless plan was that we made the video public (because we wanted to get noticed!) so my parents had no trouble seeing it.

Needless to say, punishments followed our YouTube premier.

I quickly learned that this was not freedom. For the sake of my spine, I could not do anything I wanted.

Freedom was not being able to do anything I wanted, like jumping off a roof. It was choosing to love my body enough not to break my neck.

[Pause]

In a similar way, life with God is grounded in the freedom to love God in return.

Freedom in God is not being able to do anything we want because God has unconditional love for us.

God is an all-loving parent who provides and supports us continually – continually, day in and day out.

But like a parent, God deserves respect. God is all-powerful and yearns for reverence.

As children of God, we are drawn into relationship with God.

This relationship is true freedom because we are free to see and be transformed by all of God’s goodness that he has given us as his children.

Freedom is not the rejection of everything, only to be tethered by the open road.

Freedom is not isolation from relationship with God and community.

Freedom is not the ability to be a stuntman and jump off a roof.

True freedom is the choice to accept God’s love and to love God in return.

True freedom is the ability to realize when we’ve screwed up trying to be independent and return home.

True freedom is having a healthy balance of independence and interdependence. Its knowing your individual self and yourself in community.

True freedom is stopping in the middle of a hectic day, taking a deep breath, and feeling the warm embrace of God [right here].

True freedom is when you’re walking in a desert, stop at the cool, refreshing fountain of God’s unconditional love, and take a plunge.